European Welfare Nationalism: A Study of Deliberative Forums in Five Countries

The protection of welfare rights of “natives” has become a winning political formula throughout Europa. The debate is fuelled both by migration flows from Non-EU-countries and flows within EU-countries; in the latter case with entitlement rights secured by EU-legislation. The welfare nationalist attitudes of the public have so far primarily been analysed by means of survey items, e.g. the one made available by the European Social Survey (Mewes, Mau 2012, Mewes, Mau 2013, Reeskens, van Oorschot 2012, Van der Waal, Achterberg et al. 2010, Van Der Waal, De Koster et al. 2013, Gerhards, Lengfeld 2013). In this paper we describe these attitudes by means of qualitative material obtained by deliberative forums conducted in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Slovenia in 2015. The small mini publics of around 35 citizens where gathered two full days from 9 am to 4 pm with an interval of two weeks. The meetings were videotaped, transcribed and translated to English. Before the second gatherings, the participants received basic facts about the level and character for migrants, and at the gathering expert information were provided. Finally, the respondents in the deliberative forums conducted a pre- and post-surveys, which enables us to link quantitative survey responses with qualitative data material. The guiding research questions are 1) which rationales can be found behind welfare nationalist public attitudes in Germany, UK, Norway, Denmark and Slovenia? 2) what kind of migrants do the public have in mind when welfare nationalist attitudes are expressed? 3) what kind of welfare schemes do the public have in mind when welfare nationalist attitudes are expressed? and 4) what kind of consensus position could be formed in public discussion? Theoretically, the paper distinguish between attitudes rooted in competition for resources (self-interests), lack of shared identity (recipients focused solidarity) and socio-tropic concerns about the cultural and economic sustainability of the nation state. The paper is part of the NORFACE project “Welfare state futures: Our Children’s Europe” https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/welfsoc/